''Kingfishers Catch Fire'' is a 1953

comedy novel A comic novel is a novel-length work of humorous fiction. Many well-known authors have written comic novels, including P. G. Wodehouse, Henry Fielding, Mark Twain, and John Kennedy Toole. Comic novels are often defined by the author's literary ...

by the British writer

Rumer Godden Margaret Rumer Godden (10 December 1907 – 8 November 1998) was an English author of more than 60 fiction and non-fiction books. Nine of her works have been made into films, most notably ''Black Narcissus'' in 1947 and '' The River'' in ...

. It was party inspired by her own time living in

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

.Lassner p.106 The title is taken from the poem by

Gerard Manley Hopkins Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame placed him among leading Victorian poets. His prosody – notably his concept of sprung rhythm – established him as an innovato ...

Synopsis

After she is widowed and left with little money and two children, an independent-minded Englishwoman chooses to live in India rather than return to Britain. She is idealistically attracted to living a

peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants ...

lifestyle in a small village. A series of cultural misunderstandings follow with the local inhabitants.

References

Bibliography

* Lassner, Phyllis. ''Colonial Strangers: Women Writing the End of the British Empire''. Rutgers University Press, 2004. * Le-Guilcher, Lucy. ''Rumer Godden: International and Intermodern Storyteller''. Routledge, 2016. 1953 British novels Novels by Rumer Godden Novels set in British India British comedy novels Macmillan Publishers books {{1950s-comedy-novel-stub